Top Tips for Taking Better Photos of your Kids

Before the kids came along, my camera was never far from my side and I loved snapping pictures of my friends on nights out, or stunning scenery on our holidays. These days I still adore taking photos but like most parents, my shots are generally of the children. The nights out have turned into playdates and days out and the holidays are filled with family fun and less cocktails!

Taking photos of children can be tricky because firstly, they don't stay still and secondly, if you have more than one child to photograph, it's a mission in itself getting them both to look at the camera at the same time

Tip#1 - Keep Things Natural

Asking my children to say cheese for the camera can bring out a variety of different smiles, and usually they can look a little forced! I much prefer a less staged shot where it's more likely to be a natural smile. Not like this one....!

"Say cheese!"

Tip#2 - Using the Camera Correctly

Technology has have moved on massively since my first camera and there are so many different options out there. You might prefer something basic like a point and shoot, or you might want to go top of the range with (Professional) Full Frame Mirrorless Cameras  . As with any new tech, it's good to have a play around with the settings and not rely on the automatic function - whilst the automatic setting is convenient, it doesn't guarantee the best photo. If reading the instructions isn't your thing, check out YouTube for how to videos and tips. 

Tip#3 - Get Down to Their Level

It's amazing what a difference this one makes. You can miss so much detail if you're higher than the subject and bringing the camera down to the child's eye level can help you see the world from their eyes. 

Tip#4 - Think About Your Background

My kids love bright outfits and usually wear tshirts adorned with their favourite characters. Combine these bright outfits with a busy background and your photo will just have too much going on to appreciate the subject. Simple backgrounds are the best and this can really make the colours pop! 

It's also worth learning how to take photos with a blurry background with can be really effective. Most phones have a setting that does this and I have taken some of my favourite photos using this function. 

Tip#5 - Lighting

I love experimenting with different light settings and nothing beats natural light! I especially love the golden light as the sun is setting and this can look really pretty in photos.

Tip#6 - Burst Mode

As I mentioned at the start of this post, kids move fast! Most phones and camera have a burst mode, or continuous shooting mode which takes a series of photos in quick succession. I've found this really useful for getting some perfect shots - it does mean you end up with a ton of similar photos but at least these days we have the luxury of digital and can delete the ones we don't need! 

Just a wizard jumping in a puddle! 

What are your top tips for capturing those magical moments? 

*Disclosure - this is a sponsored post

My Week in Pictures - 11th December 2015

December has been a whirlwind of activity so far and I can't believe Christmas is just two weeks away....I haven't even finished writing my cards yet!

The festive season is in full swing and we've been really busy - today was a full day at home though which was lovely and much needed. Sometimes you just need a day at home in your pjs watching films! Here's what else we've been up to...and I realise that most of these snaps include food, oops!

Top Row:
- I belong to a local choir called Just Sing and we had a Christmas gig at a cafe just a few minutes from my house. Elliot insisted on wearing the Elf costume and he loved meeting Father Christmas after our performance!
- My husband is a small business owner (The Laptop Fixers) and last Friday we took our staff out for a Christmas meal. My sister in law works for us too and we had a giggle sitting next to each other!
- Another day, another Elf outing....Elliot really loves this costume! Bet you've never seen an Elf eat a hotdog this big!

Middle Row:
- Is it just boys that jump on things ALL THE TIME?! I caught Elliot bouncing on our bed in his pants...as you do!
- We had a birthday party last weekend and the kids got to decorate cupcakes. I just managed to snap this photo before the icing was demolished!

Bottom Row:
- This is what happens when you eat a penguin bar and it melts...notice how he's stuffed the whole thing in his gob though!
- Elliot was sent a lovely Christmas stocking stuffed full of Kiddylicious goodies from their PR lady Emma, what a nice touch :)
- As we were home all day today we made some rice crispie cakes but as you can probably imagine, quite a lot of the rice crispies and chocolate never made it into the cake cases!!

Festival of Light - Christmas at Longleat

Ever since we visited Longleat Safari Park back in September (you can read about it here) , Elliot hasn't stopped talking about it. He's always telling people "we went to Longleat!" so I thought it would be great to visit again at Christmas time so we could see the Festival of Lights event that is running up until the 4th January 2015. The Festival of Lights is a spectacular display of giant Chinese lanterns.

We didn't use our Tesco vouchers this time so paid full price (£23.35 per adult which included an online discount because we pre-booked) and fortunately Elliot was free as he isn't 3 yet. We also pre-booked a visit to see Father Christmas in his grotto - at £10 we didn't think this was too bad compared to other places I have seen advertised. But more on that later....!

If you read my previous blog post about Longleat you'll know that Elliot fell asleep on the safari bus and missed all the big cats! Well we wanted to ensure he got to see them this time so we decided to take our own car around the safari - including the monkey bit eeeeek! We arrived at 11am and did the safari first so that Elliot was nice and awake - he loved sitting up front with me in the car and he was fascinated by the monkies jumping on the roof! He wasn't quite so taken with the camel who got a bit close to our open window - quick!!! Wind that window up!!!
The Safari park was very busy compared with when we visited in the Summer but the only slow bit was going through the big cat enclosures - but that wasn't a problem, it gave us more time to see them. I have to say at this point that we had our Lion King soundtrack on repeat in the car (Elliot's request!) and it did make me giggle seeing all the lions and then us singing along to Circle of Life!

I won't talk too much about the rest of the park because it was covered in my previous post but we actually saw the hippos this time! Yay!

Now for The Festival of Lights....WOW!!!!!! Seeing the pictures on the website and actually seeing them in person is another thing - I was blown away. The lights were switched on at 4.30pm just as it was getting dark and it was amazing and so festive. Speaking of festive, we had a date with an important man at 4.30pm so we made our way over to the Grotto area and waited for an Elf to see us. The lead up to the Grotto was absolutely lovely - lots of twinkly lights, Christmas trees, fake snow and even a donkey or two! It looked so Christmassy and it helped that it was really cold, I felt very festive! The Santa visits were done in half hour booking slots and we were first in line for our slot so didn't have to queue, we were whisked straight in to see Father Christmas. Elliot was a little bit shy but soon stepped forward when he saw Father Christmas holding out a present for him!! Although there was a queue behind us outside, we didn't feel rushed and the Elf let us take as many photos as we wanted.

Once outside Elliot couldn't wait to open his present and he was very excited to see what was inside! It was a Johnny Jungle plane made by Wow toys - what a great gift! Perfect for a 2 yr old boy and he loved it.

After leaving the Grotto we headed towards the main area and marvelled at all the light displays. 1000s of lanterns make up the display and it is the first of it's kind in Europe! We also found a 50ft singing Christmas tree which Elliot loved. It did shows every half an hour and we managed to catch one - it lit up, it glistened, it sang carols - Elliot was spellbound!

We walked on through the rest of the display and it just got more impressive! There were giant flowers, a menagerie of animals, dragons, dancing pandas - so many things!

Luckily the park was open until 7.30pm so we had plenty of time to see all the lanterns. There was even a small market selling lots of Chinese gifts. We bought a penguin hat for Elliot....not strictly Chinese but he looked very cute! Before we left we had time to try out the yummy looking spring rolls from the Chinese food stall and Elliot tucked into a turkey and stuffing roll....all that waking around had made us hungry! We finally managed to drag ourselves away from the park as they were closing and we'd had such  brilliant day - topped off nicely by seeing all the lanterns from afar as we drove back up the exit road.

Penguin hat!

I can thoroughly recommend seeing the Festival of Lights and I urge you all to visit before they close on the 4th January!

Personalised Christmas Cards by Postsnap

You may remember I reviewed the lovely Postsnap postcards a few months ago. Now Christmas is on the way, they have launched an exciting new range of Christmas cards which like the postcards, can be personalised with your favourite photo and then sent directly to the recipient.

As with the postcards, their home screen on the app is very easy to navigate and tells you exactly how much the cards are. For a Christmas card you will pay £3 which I think i good value because that includes free delivery.

After I clicked on 'Greeting Card', it came up with lots of options, including many Christmas themed ones. As my cards were going to be from my son, I chose some bright and colourful templates. I uploaded my chosen photo from facebook and it was really easy to tweak it to fit. There was options to change the colour of the card, or even the effect of the photo. My photo was a little dark so I brightened it up a bit.

Postsnap had stored my addresses from last time so it was very quick to whizz through the delivery options and to a finished order. There was also the option of sending another card to another recipient but using the same photo and template - very useful!

The cards arrived a few days later and Elliot's Grandparents are very happy with their personalised Christmas cards!

Postsnap are very kindly offering my readers 25% off an order so please use the following code at checkout: ELLIOT1